Rifle reports : a story of Indonesian independence / Mary Margaret Steedly.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Steedly, Mary Margaret, 1946-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Karo-Batak (Indonesian people)--History.

Karo-Batak (Indonesian people).

Indonesia--History--Revolution, 1945-1949.

Indonesia.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (417 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, 2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

On August 17, 1945, Indonesia proclaimed its independence from Dutch colonial rule. Five years later, the Republic of Indonesia was recognized as a unified, sovereign state. The period in between was a time of aspiration, mobilization, and violence, in which nationalists fought to expel the Dutch while also trying to come to grips with the meaning of "independence." Rifle Reports is an ethnographic history of this extraordinary time as it was experienced on the outskirts of the nation among Karo Batak villagers in the rural highlands of North Sumatra. Based on extensive interviews and conversations with Karo veterans, Rifle Reports interweaves personal and family memories, songs and stories, memoirs and local histories, photographs and monuments, to trace the variously tangled and perhaps incompletely understood ways that Karo women and men contributed to the founding of the Indonesian nation. The routes they followed are divergent, difficult, sometimes wavering, and rarely obvious, but they are clearly marked with the signs of gender. This innovative historical study of nationalism and decolonization is an anthropological exploration of the gendering of wartime experience, as well as an inquiry into the work of storytelling as memory practice and ethnographic genre.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Technical Notes

Introduction: The Outskirts of the Nation

1. The Golden Bridge

2. Buried Guns

3. Imagining Independence

4. Eager Girls

5. Sea of Fire

6. Letting Loose the Water Buffaloes

7. The Memory Artist

Conclusion: The Sense of an Ending

Appendix 1: List of Informants

Appendix 2: Glossary and Abbreviations

Appendix 3: Time Line

Notes

References

Index of Cited Informants

General Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780520955288

0520955285

OCLC:

836406360